Graduation cancellations
Tough time for 1st-generation grads, families
After eight years of rigorous work and against all odds, Maria Ramirez, 27, is set to become the first doctor in her family.
The daughter of Mexican immigrants was supposed to walk the stage in May during graduation from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, finally validating her parents’ sacrifices, she said.
Ramirez, who plans to practice family medicine, had ordered her cap and gown. Her parents had been preparing for the milestone and planned to invite extended family. But the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the planned celebration.
Ramirez’s commencement ceremony and Match Day on March 20, when she would find out the hospital where she’d complete her residency, were abruptly canceled as part of an effort by universities across the country to help stop the spread of the coronavirus. Instead, she received an email about her match with MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, Illinois. And UIC said it is exploring its options, which may include postponement or a virtual ceremony.
Ramirez says universities are “responsibly handling the pandemic,” but as an upcoming first-generation college graduate, the sentiment of not being able to take part in the May ceremony is bittersweet.
“It’s disappointing because the graduation ceremony is not just to celebrate my achievement, it was also meant to recognize that my family accomplished one of their dreams, and I wished they could have experienced that,” she said.
It was her mother’s longtime dream to see one of her eight children become a doctor.
“It is a beautiful vocation to save others,” her mother, Elodia Ramirez, said in Spanish. Ramirez and her husband, Lorenzo Ramirez, have an elementary education and held lowwage factory jobs most of their lives. Their daughter’s acknowledgment is “a blessing amid so much pain in these times,” she said.
While Ramirez wishes she could have seen her daughter walk the stage in May, she takes comfort in knowing she is receiving her degree and becoming a doctor, and that is the most significant recognition of their support and hard work as parents, she said.
“I’ve always admired doctors for their mission to help others, and I know Maria will be an amazing doctor,” she said.
For black and brown firstgeneration college students, participating in a commencement ceremony is a tangible way to show their resilience and that their families’ sacrifices paid off. It also symbolizes a start to educational and generational mobility, one of the reasons why many immigrate to this country.
“All I ever wanted was for my children to go to school and become something we weren’t able to become,” Lorenzo Ramirez said. “They did it.”
Countless studies show the struggles of first-generation college students, who often enroll but do not always graduate. Though enrollment of black and Latinos attending college continues to rise, one-third of first-generation students dropped out after three years, compared with 14% of their peers whose parents had earned a degree, according to a 2018 study by the Center for Education Statistics.
So graduation ceremonies are “extremely significant for those students and their families,” said Chris Broughton, executive director of Bottom Line Chicago, a nonprofit that focuses on helping first-generation and low-income students enroll, stay and graduate from college.
For the last six years,
Broughton has worked with hundreds of students who often doubted they would reach their goal of graduating college. Most are from underrepresented communities across Chicago. Many, like Maria Ramirez, come from immigrant families, he said.
Broughton has witnessed their struggles, but also their successes.
“A commencement ceremony signifies the culmination of their hopes and dreams; the sweat and tears of one entire family,” he said. “It marks a milestone moment in not only the student’s life, but the family’s hard work and ambition of not just four years, but a lifetime.”
That’s an experience Dionne Montgomery’s parents share. The Chicago natives weren’t able to attend college because they couldn’t afford it. “So they did everything they could to make sure I could attend,” said Montgomery, 27, a law student at UIC’s John Marshall Law School.
Montgomery is part of the 2020 class. Her parents won’t be able to see her cross the stage in May. For the future lawyer, obtaining a college degree and walking the stage as a firstgeneration college student, also signifies a victory for her community, she said. “It shows the world what we are capable of and how we break barriers,” she said.
“And though it is heartbreaking not to have that, humanity needs us,” Montgomery added.
Students from colleges across the country, including UIC and DePaul University, are spearheading a movement requesting an alternative ceremony once the crisis ceases. DePaul’s student newspaper shared a petition highlighting the meaning of the commencement for some of its first-generation Latino peers.
Others are less concerned about their live graduation ceremonies.
While it is symbolic and essential for some, “it’s not the most important thing to worry about during these trying times,” said Luis Cabrales, 21, who will receive a bachelor’s degree in Integrated Health Studies from UIC in May. His father was laid off soon after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order mandating that nonessential businesses close due to the pandemic.
“The whole point of going to college was for my parents and grandparents, and as long as they get my diploma, that’s all that matters,” he said.
Even if the ceremony is postponed or there’s an alternative one, “it won’t be the same,” said Alicia Cintora, 28, who said she was the first person in her family to attend a four-year university. This spring, Cintora, a native of the Little Village neighborhood in Chicago, will be receiving her Ph.D. in material science and engineering from Cornell University.
Her parents and six cousins had planned the trip to Ithaca, N.Y. “They had been waiting years for that moment,” Cintora said.
Aside from feeling muddled, Cintora added that she feels selfish about mourning the loss of the opportunity to walk the stage while many others are mourning the loss of lives or their livelihood.
She said that recognizing the gravity of the crisis does “not take away the unfortunate feeling of disappointment” of not being able to participate in a commencement ceremony.